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Thursday, June 24, 2010

Book Paper Wreath Tutorial

I was browsing through youtube and found this great video on how to make a paper wreath out of old book pages. I loved it and knew I had to make one. If you want to see the video just go to THIS link. It is a easy tutorial and she is funny too!

There are other paper wreaths out there I found too that I would like to try, but this was tops because I had the supplies already. LOL So heres what ya do....

Some items you need aren't in this picture. Sorry!

What you will need...

Old Book (I found mine at a thrift store for $2)

Square wooden or foam core board

Scissors

Tape

Stapler

Pencil

Hot Glue Gun

.... How to make this ....

First, you want to start off my getting all your book pages ready by cutting (tearing them) out of you book. I said tearing because it is much quicker than cutting. Usually the paper is easy to get out. Just cut back the book cover and pull the papers out. Some books are glued and in my case they were glued and tied with string. But still very easy to get out. Before I forget, since this wreath was intended for my daughters room, I used a kids craft book. I wanted bits of color to pop out. But if you are making this for your living room or any other place in the house, you can use a regular book. This wreath is larger also because the book was extra big. You can still use the same measurements with any book size. You will see what I mean about measurements below.

Once you have all the papers out of the book, its time to cut the glued edges off. I used scissors which took a little while. I couldn't find my paper cutter. Which would be much quicker. So I recommend that you use one.

Now comes the rolling of the paper. LOL This takes time, but is so worth it when you see the final result. And by time, I don't mean a whole lot. It only took me about 40 min (including stopping to help 7 kids, it was a play day. LOL) If you have lil hands willing to help, be sure to enlist!

Take your paper and roll one corner towards the other side while curling under. It will look like the photo above. Fold the remaining paper over the top. Just keep rolling back to make a cone shape.

Once all the way rolled back you will want to take a small piece of tape to hold it into place. I used regular tape but you can just as easily use double sided tape if you wanted to hid the tape. I didn't worry about it. For one, I did not have the tape along with all the other supplies and I knew that I wouldn't see it once I put the wreath together.

Once you have your cone taped, staple the bottom of each cone about 1 inch above the bottom. Again, you really don't have to be that accurate. Mine were definitely not all 1 inch. I had lil hands helping me. I would much rather have them help than be perfect. LOL They love crafting.

Keep making your cones until you have a huge pile. Sorry, I wasn't thinking of counting each one. But you will need quite a bit. I used half of the book pages from my book.

In between all this cone making, my son grabbed us a snack. Sesame sticks. mmmm! He said, "Mom, these would make great snack holders!" So you know what we did. YEP! We used a couple to hold our snacks. LOL KIDS! They sure are smart lil stinkers. I thought this was cleaver and had to share because you never know when you might need something to hold a treat. If you don't have a bowl, grab a magazine or piece of paper and roll up into a cone for a snack holder. Just tape these. No need for staples. Then just throw in the recycling bin when done or reuse again and again.

It's time to make the wreath. YEAH! This part is fun!

Get out your square board or foam core (I had the board already) Trace an 8" circle, 4" circle inside the larger circle, then a dot in the center of the board. My circles are not perfect. They are just there to give you an idea of where to place your cones.

Then start by Hot Gluing a cone to the 12 o'clock, 1, 3 and 6 o'clock positions. This will be your starting point to follow your wreath shape. Make sure the open end of the cone is facing up before you glue it down.

Continue to add your cones to make a full circle. It's looking beautiful already. Don't you just love all the color popping out from the craft book pages.

Start your second layer the same as the first by starting at 12, 1, 3 and 6 o'clock. When you glue your second set down, make sure you go in between the first cones so you will end up covering the board. As you can see from the photo above, the cones do not have to be perfectly aligned. You will fill in areas as you go to cover all bad spots. See below... look how great this is looking with just two layers.

Again, for your final layer start with 12, 1, 3 and 6 o'clock. Then just keep glueing around until you have your desired look and covering up any parts of the board that may be showing. The picture below shows the finished third layer. Love it! So pretty.

On the video I watched, she used small ornament balls and buttons to fill her center. I wanted something different to complete this so I made my own paper flowers for the center.

Take one sheet of paper and cut in half. Fold the one half in half. Then cut strips down the whole side of the paper. Don't cut on the folded edge, you want this to stay in one piece. Once you have the whole piece cut, fold back the two paper in opposite directions making your petals. I just folded them quickly by using the edge of a table. Roll the bottom using the table and roll the tops back after that. The bottom row will now be out of your way. Pretty easy. I tried it one at a time and that was too time consuming.

Once all the papers are curled back, just roll your strip into a flower shape. Secure with tape. Shape into the flower shape that you like. You will want to make 8 of these for the center of your wreath.

Glue all 8 to the center of your wreath. Start by gluing 7 paper flowers into a circle, then add your final paper flower to the center to complete it. Shape the paper if you need to.

Glue on a wall hanging bracket and you are all done. Ready to hang and enjoy.

Here is our completed wreath. We love it! I already have people requesting them for their homes. Phew!

FYI.... My son helped me assemble this whole wreath. I added the glue and he did the rest. He did a great job, don't you think. I made all the cones of course. He thought that part was boring. LOL. But thought I would tell you because this can just as easily be a kids craft as well.

Tips and Tricks...

To make this a smaller wreath, cut your book pages in half. Make two layers instead of three.

Afraid to use a book ~ use a magazine or newspaper. Or just get an old book that had been worn out (papers missing or torn)

Find some old music sheets that are unusable. That would make a beautiful wreath.

I used a small paper plate at my back for mine, did three or 4 rolls of pages and used a phone book (who needs a phone book these days and it would have just ended up in the recycle bin or worse the regular trash), and I painted it with left over white latex paint and added fake flowers to the center...It made a great addition to an other wise very empty foyer in my house!